[unityByFreedom]

> They don't preregister their trials.

First of all, preregistration is not a requirement for the scientific method, which has functioned well for centuries. That is a recent trend in response to the overflowing amount of haphazardly published science.

Second, it is up to the individual scientist to decide to preregister or not. Some social scientists may preregister.

Third, small sample size may be a fair critique, however that overlooks how difficult it is to collect such data.

You've made a lot of generalizations here that amount to, "social scientists aren't as rigorous as other areas of science, therefore we should only believe studies that disagree with their results". I don't think throwing the baby out with the bath water is helpful. You can take results of studies with small sample sizes with a grain of salt, watch for replication, etc. Lambasting the field as a whole doesn't make sense to me.

Finally, readers should note that this isn't a new argument. People have been making this claim about social science for 120 years, if not longer, but at least since Freud and contemporaries began publishing.

[rayiner]

> You've made a lot of generalizations here that amount to, "social scientists aren't as rigorous as other areas of science, therefore we should only believe studies that disagree with their results".

I think it’s more “ignore them completely.” It brings “science” into disrepute to let social science associate with the other sciences.

> I don't think throwing the baby out with the bath water is helpful.

There is no baby!

> People have been making this claim about social science for 120 years, if not longer, but at least since Freud and contemporaries began publishing.

Doesn’t that prove the point? It wasn’t science then and isn’t science today.

[unityByFreedom]

> It brings “science” into disrepute to let social science associate with the other sciences.

So you just want it renamed to "social studies" or what? What is your proposal, that nobody research this topic, or that they be separated in journals etc? I doubt that will have much impact on whether it makes the news. If you want that to change, you may need to get yourself onto the board of a journal you care about.

> There is no baby!

That's reductive. Just because you don't see the baby doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

> Doesn’t that prove the point? It wasn’t science then and isn’t science today.

No, it just proves it's an old disagreement, like nature vs nurture.

There is plenty of work in social science that contributes to humanity. It will always have smaller sample sizes due to the nature of collecting the data. The work can be considered useful nonetheless.

[Schroedingersat]

> So you just want it renamed to "social studies" or what? What is your proposal, that nobody research this topic, or that they be separated in journals etc? I doubt that will have much impact on whether it makes the news.

Or maybe people just want to shine light on the fact that social science is harder than other science for a bunch of different reasons, bring social scientists' attention towards the tools that help mitigate this, and bring the journals that seek profit over reliable results into disrepute?

Most of the papers published in current social science journals are not science, and this has been a problem for those 120 years precisely because the techniques used in chemistry or physics are inadequate for the problem domain, so applying them blindly does not produce scientific outcomes.

[unityByFreedom]

> maybe people just want to shine light on the fact that social science is harder than other science

The comment to which I was replying lacked the nuance in yours. Context is everything.

[rayiner]

> So you just want it renamed to "social studies" or what? What is your proposal, that nobody research this topic, or that they be separated in journals etc

Yes. And that the rest of us stop treating it as science, citing it as science, and relying on it as science.

For example, there is a major trend in the law of treating social sciences as having truth value the way real sciences do. That’s the kind of thing we need to stop doing.

[unityByFreedom]

I found the hard/soft science discussion here [1] to be informative.

It seems unlikely that all of social science will one day be declared as "not science". Aristotle's methods, for example, did not require a certain sample size.

You're applying far too strict of a definition to science. Basic forms of science can be practiced by a child at home. Journals publish more in-depth analyses, and it's up to them what to publish, at the risk or reward of gains and losses of readership.

[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-social-s...

[rayiner]

> You're applying far too strict of a definition to science.

This isn’t a fun theoretical exercise. In the public sphere, “science” tends to get invoked with dispositive weight. And it should in many cases. But for that to work, “science” must meet the level of rigor people associate with “science.” To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology.

Aristotle didn’t do “science.” He was a philosopher. His ideas were precursors to science, but weren’t science.

[unityByFreedom]

> To be called “science” it should be like physics in terms of providing truth value, not psychology.

It's possible to form a truth about human behavior, for example, I did X because Y. If someone points my behavior out to me, then in the future I may do Z in response to Y. Human behavior can change upon observation [1]. That doesn't make the study of human behavior "not science" in my opinion.

> Aristotle didn’t do “science.” He was a philosopher. His ideas were precursors to science, but weren’t science.

In that case, I suppose you will acknowledge that Galileo did science, despite not having a lot of data points. I think Aristotle did too, because I draw the line at hypothesis, observation and conclusion, which may or may not result in some ultimate truth that remains constant.

I suppose you would also say that the double slit test is science. Yet that result changes, and there is no truth value that we can explain, except by noting that the result changes when the experiment is observed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32233420

[istjohn]

It's not useful. In fact, it's actively harmful. The constant churn of findings and retractions undermines the public's belief in science. When people stop believing in science, you get things like flat earthers, global warming deniers, and vaccine skeptics.

[unityByFreedom]

The quibble here is whether social science is a science. Here's a good overview, including a video of Feynman which the HN crowd may appreciate:

https://www.quora.com/Is-social-science-a-real-science/answe...

Humanity is observable. It's just hard to collect the data. I think you can make the case that some science isn't as rigorous, or that the jury is still out, but to say that it isn't science at all is wrong in my opinion. Even Feynman acknowledges that conclusions may be drawn later.

Aristotle philosophized quite a bit and is considered an early contributor to the scientific method. More food for thought:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-social-s...

[istjohn]

I think social science is clearly possible. The question is whether what passes for social science in our scientific journals deserve the label.

[unityByFreedom]

That is a much more reasonable question that I think would be up to the journal, and you as a reader.

[sbierwagen]

>First of all, preregistration is not a requirement for the scientific method, which has functioned well for centuries.

As has been said before, the problem is that the scientific method is right eventually. It can and often does get stuck for decades at a time, if someone with, shall we say, durable beliefs gets tenure, amasses political power and shoves their rivals out of a field. The amyloid hypothesis is just the most recent example.

Modern metascience practices (preregistration, blinding, banning "garden of forking paths" subgroup analysis, demanding high p factors and larger n) don't replace the scientific method, they're supposed to speed it up! But, by definition, these are all political issues, so they attract political arguments.

[unityByFreedom]

> It can and often does get stuck for decades at a time,

I think this is just more data. If we're all wrong for a longer time, then the impact will be more clear.

I agree that modern additions like preregistration are helpful. I only wanted to remark that it is not a prerequisite for science.

> by definition, these are all political issues, so they attract political arguments.

People are good at gaming systems. We are naturals at recognizing patterns and will adjust our behavior to meet our goals. In that sense, social science may be targeting a moving object, almost like the difference between observing and not observing the atoms in a double slit test.

As hard as it may be in social science, the process of hypothesizing, observing and forming conclusions is still science. For some, it appears that is not science because a definite conclusion never arrives.

Which viewpoint is correct? I think it's up to you to decide. And, when you don't grant people that choice, you get an anti-science response, because people naturally reject being told what to think. Science, for me, is about asking questions, not necessarily arriving at a definitive result.

[planck01]

> however that overlooks how difficult it is to collect such data.

It is very difficult in physics as well. Do you know how hard it is and how much effort is involved in building the LHC? Or Ligo? Or the JWST? Or ITER? They cost billions of dollars, thousands of scientists and decades to plan and make before you even get science data. Science is hard! You need to put the work and effort in, because otherwise you can't say anything about the nature of things.